Veiled Lady
by 9TeiruKitsune
Summary: I had noticed for some time that Neuro had been growing increasingly dissatisfied and restless. We had had no big mysteries of late, and that meant no puzzles, and no puzzles meant no meals for Neuro. This had not been a pleasant week for me.
1. Scene 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own either Agatha Christie or Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro.

**Notes: **I saw someone had written a story based on 'And Then There Where None' by Agatha Christie, and, being a HUGE Agatha Christie fan, I loved the idea ^-^. However, that is my least fav story she has written, so I decided to make anouther one based on a story I like.

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**The Veiled Lady**

I had noticed for some time that Neuro had been growing increasingly dissatisfied and restless.

We had had no big mysteries of late, and that meant no puzzles, and no puzzles meant no meals for Neuro. This had not been a pleasant week for me.

This morning he had flung me [after announcing I was late-I wasn't] across the room, and as I hit the wall he made an impatient hissing noise.

"It's your fault that we haven't gotten any puzzles of late." Neuro stated with distaste. "You're not famous enough, so we're not getting any mysteries from far away, and food grows scarce here because criminals know you're in the area."

I didn't tell him that the second part was his fault for making me so famous in the first place. It was safer that way. "What about the Bond Street Jewelry robbery that you solved the other day?" I reminded him.

Neuro looked slightly annoyed.

"A man with a loaded cane smashes the plate-glass window of the shop and grabs a number of precious stones. Passersby caught the man, but when the police checked the jewels in his pocket, they found them to be paste. He already confessed to passing the stones to another associate of his, one of the before mentioned 'passersby'. He didn't know his associates real name, and the police have yet to find him." He sighed.

"It was far too light eating, louse. I used up all the energy I got from the meal just by walking there."

It was my turn to sigh. "How about this?" I pointed to the paper I was reading. "Here's an Englishman found dead in Holland."

"His death was natural. He just ate some bad tuna."

Wow. Neuro must be getting pretty desperate to have checked up on the stories in the paper himself.

"Ah." An evil smiled played across Neuro's lips. "We have a customer worm."

A minute later our customer walked in. She was heavily veiled, and it was impossible to distinguish her features until she raised the veil of black Spanish lace. The young lady was extremely pretty, with fair hair and blue eyes. She wore an expensive looking dress, and turned towards me looking rather distraught.

"Miss Yako I presume?" said the lady in a soft, musical voice. "I am in great trouble. I really don't know if you can help me, but I heard such wonderful things about you that I come to you literally as my last hope to beg you to do the impossible."

"Oh, teacher has done the impossible many times before! Sometimes she's done as many as six impossible things before breakfast! Look! She's doing the impossible now!" Neuro chirped, twisting my head completely around.

Our fair guest hesitated.

"You can tell me." I said, as calmly as I could with a claw digging into my spine, and my windpipe crushed.

"I will trust you." The girl said suddenly. "You have heard of Lady Millicent Castle Vaughan?"

Immediately my interest grew. The announcement of Lady Milli's [as she was fondly called] engagement to the young Duke of Southshire had appeared a few days previous. According to rumor, she was in Japan on a honeymoon location hunt.

"I am her," continued the girl. "You may have read of my engagement. I should be the happiest girl alive right now, but oh, Miss Yako, I am in terrible trouble! There is this man, this horrible man, his name is Lavington; and he-I hardly know what to say. There was a letter I wrote, when I was young, only sixteen at the time, and he-he-"

"A letter you wrote to this Mr. Lavington?" Neuro interrupted Lady Milli right when she looked on the verge of tears.

"No! Not him! A young solider I was fond of, he was killed in the war." Lady Milli sniffed a bit at the last part. " It was a stupid letter. An indiscreet letter, but nothing too serious. However, in the wrong hands bearing wrong interpretation…"

"I understand," I assured her soothingly. "But why does Mr. Lavington have it?"

"I'm not sure how he got a hold of it, but he threatens me, that unless I pay him an absurd amount of money, an amount I can't raise, he'll send it to the Duke."

"Can't you just tell the Duke the truth?" I asked.

"I dare not! The Duke is very particular and very jealous. If I tell him I might as well break off the engagement!"

There was a moment of silence after Milli's outburst.

"Dear, dear." Neuro smiled [more like continued smiling, since his face hadn't changed through the whole sad story]. "but whatever do you wish us to do?"

"I want you to get the letter back."


	2. Scene 2

"How are we supposed to find it? It could be anywhere. He might not even have it in his house, it could be in some safety deposit box somewhere." I asked since Neuro didn't say anything.

"It's in his house." Lady Milli said matter of factly.

"How can you be so certain?" Neuro finally spoke.

"He showed it to me. I went over to his house two nights ago and told him to hand over the letter at once or I'd call the police."

"What did he say?"

"Ha-he laughed. He said I was free to call the police if I liked. He only wondered what I would tell them he had taken from me. He even pulled out the little china box he was keeping it in. Told me that the box stayed in such a clever place I would never find it. I looked at the small wall safe he had, and he shook his head and laughed. 'I have a better safe than that.' He told me." Lady Milli looked beside herself with worry. "Is there any way in which you can get the letter back?"

"Have faith in Sensai!" Neuro said with gleaming eyes. "She will find a way."

These reassurances were all well and good, but as a watched Neuro escort Lady Milli to the door, I couldn't help but think that this case wouldn't be all that easy.

"How are you planning on getting the letter Neuro?" I asked, worried that he would simply torture it out of this Mr. Lavington.

"First things first." Neuro said, snapping out of his innocent act. "We have yet to meet Mr. Lavington."

Mr. Lavington was more than happy to come visit us at the office. He was much what I expected him to be; loud, rude, and an overall jerk. He made sure we knew he was master over the situation, and much to my surprise and displeasure, Neuro did nothing to rectify that. Neuro had been tripping me and hitting me, and overall making me look like an idiot.

"My, my Sensai, you're so very clumsy today!" Neuro said with oozing worry as he tripped me for the umpthteenth time. Lavington's smile grew and he reached for his coat.

"Well, Miss Yako, we don't seem to be getting anywhere with this conversation. This is how it'll go; I'll let Lady Milli off cheap since she's such a pretty young lady." He leered, "Let's say…62 thousand US dollars. I'll be in Korea for a few days, I have a little business to attend there, when I get back on Tuesday, she had better have the 62 grand, or you can tell her I'm going to send the letter to the Duke himself, as well as copies to 10 different newspapers. Don't tell me Milli dear can't raise the money. She's a good looking gal, I'm sure she can get the money off of some of her male friends-if she asks them the right way that is."

Never before had I had the urge to kick someone down the stairs as badly as I did now. My face turned bright right and I took a step towards the dirty creep as he turned out the door.

Neuro hooked a claw through my sweater, keeping me from following through on my wondrous idea.

I considered screaming at Neuro for giving that lousy jerk even the slightest idea that he was in control. Needless to say, I didn't consider it for very long. I did, however, ask him why he didn't get the letters location from the guy here and now, and instead make me seem like a bumbling fool.

"This puzzle isn't all that simple, insect." Neuro whirled to face me. "And I wanted you to seem as incompetent as possible. After all, the man was a bit nervous when he came in here. He was no doubt wonder if the marvelous High School Detective would see right through him. I just gave him some confidence that you were overrated."

"Why would you do that?"

"So he would let his guard down. And it worked." Neuro's hand was now crushing my head. " He's leaving for business in the morning. And he was stupid enough to tell us that."

"What are we going to do-rob the place?" I half laughed.

"Sometimes you do show a small speck of intelligence, slug."

Crap. I really hoped he wasn't going to say that. "B-but won't he take the letter with him?" I quickly stammered.

"Of course he won't. He feels that his hiding place is perfectly impossible to find. We'll go tomorrow night."

We? I guess that meant I was going too. Well, the creep did deserve it. I just hoped Neuro wouldn't make me get caught on purpose.


	3. Scene 3

I didn't even bother trying to sleep that night, knowing that if I did happen to doze off, Neuro would give me a rather rude awakening.

Neuro looked rather disappointed when he climbed through my window and found me waiting for him, sitting on my bed staring at the window. "My, my louse, haven't we gotten rather bold, making your master come and get you."

"You didn't exactly tell me a time and a place. I figured if I ended up in the wrong spot, you'd be more annoyed at having to hunt me down then having to come to my house."

Neuro seemed even more annoyed at this logic. I must have been right. "At least you look like a burglar maggot." He stated, referring to my black t-shirt and jeans. And then he promptly picked me up and flung me over his shoulder like I was a sack of potatoes. I didn't manage to fully stifle a slight scream when Neuro jumped out of the second story window, and when we landed he made sure to point it out, and throw me on the ground as punishment.

Godai was waiting for us in a suspiciously stolen looking black car. Neuro threw me in the back seat and climbed into the passenger side. "Drive to Buona Street slave, and drop us off at the corner. No need to draw unnecessary attention. Make sure you wait for us until you die of hunger."

There were several grumbles from Godai, a few which sounded suspiciously like swearing, but Neuro must have hit him a few times already, because he didn't speak up.

When we got to the house that was supposedly Mr. Lavington's, Neuro walked straight to a side window and opened it. "How did you know the window would be open?" I whispered.

"I already sent slave number two here to saw through the catch this morning." Neuro said with his blank smile.

"Wouldn't he have gotten caught?"

"Not if he told the maid working there that Mr. Lavington asked him to install an anti-theft alarm. Apparently Mr. Lavington has had quite a few burglar attempts recently, so the girl easily bought it." Neuro had now entered the house and I struggled to climb in after him.

Neuro grabbed the back of my shirt and threw me to the floor inside. "Get searching louse." He said, spitting up some Evil Fridays. He then preceded to lean up against the nearest wall and shut his eyes in apparent boredom.

…

We [and by 'we' I mean me and the Evil Fridays] had searched the entire house, but there was no sign of a Chinese puzzle box. Neuro looked slightly annoyed. "You can't even do a task this simple, eh worm?" I decided not to point out he hadn't found it either.

Neuro half sighed half snorted and got up from leaning against the wall. "Did you check the kitchen?" "Wouldn't it be more likely to be in Mr. Lavington's office? He wouldn't want the maid stumbling on it."

Neuro gave me a rather threatening look. "Y-yes! I checked the kitchen!" I quickly blurted. He seemed rather displeased by this statement. "I truly am disappointed slug, I think you can handle such a simple task, and yet you overlook the obvious."

"The obvious?"

Neuro pointed at a stack of wood that sat next to the wood burning stove. "I looked behind that and in that. All there is is logs of wood."

Neuro almost looked pained at my apparent stupidity. He walked over and kicked the stack over. Grabbing one of the logs sitting on the bottom he ripped it in half as if he was ripping paper. Sitting in the middle of the log [which I could now see had been sawed in half and glued back together] was a little red Chinese puzzle box.

I was speechless. How did he even see that? "Why put it there? What if the log was used?"

"In July?" Neuro gave me a disgusted glance, and promptly threw me out the window. A glance back inside showed the Evil Fridays cleaning up. "To the car insect." Neuro smiled and licked his lips. "This myster is already at the tip of my toungue."


	4. Scene 4

By the time Neuro had gotten me home, I was exhausted. I crashed on my bed and fell asleep instantly. It was about 1pm before I woke up again, and I realized with a start that I was late to the office. Maybe Neuro would let me off since I had been working late yesterday.

…

'Apparently not' I thought as a stapler flung across the room and hit me in the face as I walked in the door. "You're late." Neuro stated.

I sighed, "Sorry about that, I _was_ out late yesterday, doing wh-"

"Of course Sensai, your personal life comes priority to all else, I was merely shocked you weren't upset at me for carrying you here in your bed and getting breakfast ready. Thank you for being so kind today."

Since Neuro was acting so sickeningly sweet, I must have had someone behind me. And when I turned around, I found myself face to face with Lady Milli.

Our client looked delighted as soon as she spotted the Chinese box Neuro had left on his desk. "Oh, Miss Yako! How amazing! However did you get it?" "Sensai is an expert sneak thief! She will tell you all about where it was! Go ahead Sensai! Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

Yako gave a rough idea of what happened, leaving out Godai and a few parts about Neuro.

"What an amazing genius you are!" Lady Milli swooned. "Sensai had me read the letter to make sure it's the right one," Neuro broke into Lady Milli's gushing.

Lady Milli looked a trifle embarrassed. "Couldn't you have read it yourself Miss Yako? I appreciate your saving me, but I would prefer to have kept this a private matter between us girls."

"Sensai said it was far to troublesome. Would you like to take a look and make sure this is your letter as well?" Neuro's eyes glowed slightly.

"Indeed it is!" Lady Milli said, skimming over the letter. She picked up the Chinese puzzle box from the desk. "I shall keep this as a souvenir." "Actually, Sensai said she would like to keep it as a souvenir. She absolutely loves puzzle boxes."

"I hope to send you a better souvenir then that on my wedding day. You will certainly not find me ungrateful." She started to pull away, but Neuro grabbed her hand holding the box. "I think not." He dropped his innocent voice.

"What do you mean?" Lady Milli asked rather sharply.

"Why don't we first see what else in the box?" I finally spoke up. Neuro looked at me with mild surprise. Apparently he thought I was a lost cause after yesterday.

"Whatever do you mean?" Lady Milli gave the box a firm tug, but Neuro's hand didn't move in the slightest. Neuro made a quick gesture, then held out his hand. Four large glittering gems and two huge pearls appeared in his hand. "The jewels stolen from Bond Street the other day, or so Sensai says. Let's have Detective Sasazuka confirm."

I was rather surprised when Sasazuka and Ishigaki walked out of the bathroom. "An old friend of yours?" Neuro asked, slipping back into his innocent expression.

"Nabbed by the coppers!" Lady Milli, spat, her manner completely changed. "You bratty little girl!" She looked at me with almost a look of awe.

"Well, Gertie, we've been looking for you for a while now." Sasazuka reached for his hand cuffs. "You nearly gave us the slip. We already got your friend Lavington, alias Crocker, alias Reed. I wonder who it was that stuck a knife in him in Holland."

"Yeah, it was me," Lady Milli, or Gertie, which was her real name, suddenly seethed. "That jerk Reed double crossed me, the backstabber. So I returned the favor! Like I'm going to let a little brat and a couple cops stop me from getting the profits I deserve!" She reached for the jewels in Neuro's hand.

For a second, the world seemed to stop. I was the only one who could see Neuro's transformation or hear the "Itadakimasu!" after which the world seemed to breathe again, and Gertie collapsed on the floor.

When Sasazuka and Ishigaki left, Neuro turned to me. "How did you know Lady Milli was a fraud? You seemed completely clueless worm."

"Her shoes. Human woman take great pride in shoes, and even though she was wearing such an expensive outfit, she was wearing cheap shoes. No member of royalty would wear such a thing. And then the veil and the letter-it was all a bit dramatic and didn't ring true."

"My, my, slave. Perhaps your not as worthless as I thought. And apparently your fame isn't scaring ALL the mysteries away. They're even coming here to be solved themselves." Neuro said with a small yet frightening grin. And he then promptly threw me across the room.

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Thanks for reading! Please let me know if I made any mistakes, any of the characters were ooc, and if it needs any improvements.

Hope you enjoyed it :D


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